Ranma, having lost the Phoenix Pill and being all but trapped in his feminine form, leaves the Tendo Dojo in search of a "normal" life. With the Full Body Cat's Tongue rendering them unable to take a hit and putting martial arts largely out of her l...
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Ranma sighed to herself, distantly fidgeting with the last few grains of rice in her bowl with a chopstick. Everyone else had long since left the breakfast table. It had been like this for weeks now, this constant haze of hopelessness and dread. It felt like walking through quicksand every day, and all she'd have to do was hold still for just a minute and it would swallow her whole.
Five months. Five long months since "it" happened. Everyone in the Tendo household tried not to say it out loud, but despite their efforts, Ranma never let it out of her mind for a second. Stupid old ghoul thought it'd force her to marry Shampoo. Boy, did that backfire. Just when she'd mastered the Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire technique and thought she was getting her life back, too.
Ranma replayed it in her thoughts for what must have been the millionth time. All of it. The ghoul sneaking up from behind, a little poke with a stick, and that was that. The Full-Body Cat's Tongue pressure point. Ever since, every nerve she had was turned up to maximum volume; the slightest touch anywhere on Ranma's body could cause unbelievable agony. She couldn't take a hit anymore – even a punch from a weakling like her father felt like a wrecking ball. Most days, she could barely concentrate on anything but the ever-present scratching of her clothes on her skin as she moved.
Worst of all, the sensation of temperature was amplified too, and that meant hot water – the only thing that would give her back her true form, let her be a guy again – was intolerable. She'd tried. For days she tried to force herself. It'll only hurt for a minute, she thought, but how wrong she was. Once, her father held her down so she couldn't escape the kettle, and Mr. Tendo poured it over her head. She was a boy for about two whole minutes before Akane doused Ranma with a bucket of cold water and reversed the effect. Akane knew she wasn't supposed to, that it wasn't what Ranma wanted, but she couldn't just stand outside the bathroom door and listen to him scream.
And then, up on that mountain in the snow, Cologne balancing precariously on her walking stick, dangling Ranma's salvation -- a little pink locket holding the cure – over a small campfire. All Ranma had to do was snatch it from her hand, and everything would be back to, well, as close to normal as anything that'd happened since Jusenkyo.
She cracked her knuckles. I can do this. I've trained for it, Ranma thought to herself, her steely gaze daring the licking flames to challenge her. This is going to hurt like hell, but only for a second.
With a determined kiai, Ranma began her assault, her hands flashing over the flame almost too quickly to see, but the ancient Amazon was keeping pace, for now. She winced as the heat of the fire prickled at her skin, but she had to put it out of her mind; the end was in sight now. She swung wide with her right arm, forcing her adversary to lean closer to dodge. As Cologne drew closer, she rocketed her left arm forward and felt her fingers strike porcelain. She clenched her fist and pulled back, breaking the chain that held the tiny ampule around the witch's neck. All she had to do now was swallow it, and...
